After many practices in and out of school, choirs from around the district gathered at Cedar Park High School to sing and compete against only themselves and aim for the highest scores.

“It takes a lot of time and hard work to earn a one, especially for sight reading,” sophomore Zoë Collier said. “We have been working in class, after school and during pit to rehearse every week since January. We work our songs to perfection and practice going through sight reading process so we can do the best that we can the day of UIL.”

Four choir groups performed at the UIL event – Men’s varsity, Women’s varsity, Mixed varsity and junior varsity women’s. Each choir was rated on a scale from one to five, one being the highest and five being the lowest. All four teams got sweepstakes, which means each team scored all ones.

“We were judged on three songs we prepared and a random sight reading we saw for the first time that day by six different judges,” Collier said. “Instead of competing against other choirs, we were trying to see how well we could do as a choir, kind of like competing against ourselves.”

The music program of UIL is designed to enhance and improve the teaching of music within the Texas school system. Each year, around half a million elementary, middle and high school students receive the benefits of participation in the UIL music events.

“UIL is the culmination of the year as we get the chance to show other choirs and the judges all the hard work we’ve been doing all year,” sophomore Lauryn McCosky said.

Every single VHS choir that has competed in UIL has received sweepstakes since Mr. Feris has become the choir director.

“Every choir for six years, has gotten sweepstakes so in that regard, they have been consistent,” choir teacher Michael Feris said. “The way they have gotten the sweepstakes has been better and better. There’s more control, technique and musical things they’re doing.”

Although the event was each choir competing against themselves, it allowed each choir to practice and fix their mistakes.

“Overall, we did extremely well considering we got sweepstakes,” junior Brittany Young said. “I think our highest point was just really coming together as a team and everyone contributing equally.”